The newspaper for English language and international education

Search the EL Gazette

English faces competition in Ghana

In the run-up to of the presidential elections in the West African nation of Ghana, the president’s chief of staff pledged that senior high school students would start learning Arabic ‘at the basic level’ alongside English – Ghana’s only official language - as a subject.

In the event of president John Dramami Mahama’s re-election, said Julius Debrah, future Ghanaian school leavers could earn a certificate in Arabic with which they ‘can be employed in other Arabic countries.’ The moves follows the announcement in June that ‘local languages’, rather than English, will become the ‘sole medium of instruction’ in kindergarten and the first three years of primary, according to Ghana News. (There are eight ‘government-sponsored languages, of which Twi and Ewe are the biggest.)